Friday Night Feast

I did say in my last post I want to blog more frequently so I'm back already! I don't know about you, but it was a long Friday. Lots of icky rainy here from Tropical Storm Andrea.

I was excited that I had thought ahead to take out crab cakes for dinner tonight. It was a great meal to end the week with and since it was a freezer meal---no big mess to clean! 

The recipe I used was from www.skinnytaste.com (I simply adore that blog!) When I cooked a few weeks ago I doubled the recipe (easy!) and made two batches of 4 cakes each. I put the cakes in a round aluminum foil tin and wrapped tightly with foil. I also labeled with the contents and cooking directions before putting in the freezer. I usually label with the date as well, but crab cakes never last long in our house! I served them over a bed of baby spinach. I put the hot cakes on the spinach to give it a slight wilt. Along side for a starch I nuked some frozen steam-in-the-bag potatoes (don't judge me). All in all, a quick yummy meal!

I used silver sharpie on silver foil...whoops!

half way done cooking!

the final products!

Baked Crab Cakes 

(adapted to be freezer friendly from http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/04/baked-lump-crab-cakes-with-red-pepper.html)

Makes 8 cakes

16 oz crab meat 

20-25 crackers, crushed

2 eggs, beaten

4 scallions, chopped

1/4 cup roasted red peppers, chopped

2 tbsp mayo

handful (or more!) chopped fresh cilantro

1 lime, juiced

s & p

Bake at 400 degrees, about 15 mins on each side.

1. Assemble your tins, foil and markers to freeze.

2.  Toss all ingredients, except crab meat in a medium bowl and mix together.

3.  Gently add in crab meat.

4. Form into patties.  The original recipe calls for using a 1/2 cup measuring cup and it's pure genius! 

Tear off foil, label with date, name and cooking instructions. Place 4 patties in tin and cover tightly with foil. Pop that yummy goodness into your freezer!

To cook:

Thaw over night in refrigerator.  Remove foil and bake in oven as directed.  

Notes:

There isn't a lot of filling in this recipe (which is a good thing!) so the patties may not stay perfectly together, and that's ok!  They will still taste delicious.  Between that, and the fact that there will be extra moisture in the patties from defrosting, I cook them slightly longer than the original recipe.  I suggest to start checking on them about 10 mins into cooking on the first side.  Give em a nudge and see if they're ready to flip.  If not, cook a few more minutes before flipping to the second side.  

Also, the sauce from the original recipe is to die for!  I haven't tried freezing that yet, because it's a mayo based sauce...but I have left overs from tonight that I might just try and freeze to see what happens! Like I said before...mistakes are OK!

If you wanted to freeze individual cakes, I would make as directed then wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then foil and place cakes in a labeled gallon freezer bag.  Follow above directions for cooking! 

Stay full!